Private Rogue

Chapter 70

Beth Singer awoke from terrible dreams to find herself strapped to a pipe, her arms almost stretched to breaking point high above her head, her toes just touching the ground, so every movement was a strain and simply standing still caused untold suffering.

She had dreamed of a horrific cacophony assaulting her, death metal rock music alternating with the sounds of children screaming. Was it Maria and Danny? Where were her children? The nightmare had seemed to go on forever until in a moment of clarity she realized she was awake: the nightmare was real. It all came back to her then. How they’d grabbed her and the children. How she’d been knocked unconscious when she’d tried to fight the men off. And now she was here, alone.

Beth had completed an escape and interrogation course during her training at Fort Bragg and she guessed she was being prepared for questioning. The people who’d abducted her were trying to break her spirit. She’d been suspended in a stress position and the horrific sounds were a recording designed to grind her down psychologically. After countless hours, she came to recognize patterns in the traumatic loop.

“Please,” she tried to scream, but she’d been gagged, so she couldn’t tell them their efforts were unnecessary. She’d have gladly said or done anything they wanted in exchange for her children’s safety. With Joshua gone, they were all she had left.

Beth had spent hours weeping for Danny and Maria, picturing their faces, imaging the worst, pleading with God, begging fate to intervene and for the universe to be kind to them. She’d cried with exhaustion. Wept with shame at her inability to protect her children. She cried with abject pity for herself, and finally, when she could cry no more, she hung there limp as a joint of meat, as numb as though she’d been anesthetized.

Beth lost all sense of time. The music no longer had any effect on her, nor did the screams. Drained of all hope, she felt nothing at all. Anger, fear, frustration — all these emotions were contingent on the idea that a situation could be improved, that an outcome could be avoided or escaped. But Beth had come to accept that she and her children were lost. Everything was lost. Jack Morgan and his people had failed them. And in the grip of that knowledge, she felt nothing. That was the true nature of despair. It was absolute. There was no emotion, because there was no hope.

It took a moment for her to realize the music had stopped, and she became aware of a crack of light at the bottom of her hood. Her ringing ears made out the sound of footsteps. Someone reached out and touched her belly. The thought of someone’s fingers on her bare skin made her recoil. She’d been stripped to her underwear at some point, another ounce of her dignity she had been forced to surrender.

“Elizabeth,” a man said. “Do you want to see your children again?”

They were alive, she thought, and the hope that she’d thought extinguished was rekindled. With it came longing, anger and anxiety. Where were they? Had they been hurt? Would they live through this?

Beth felt hands reach under her hood and pull her gag down.

“Please.” Her voice sounded thin and pathetic. She was ashamed to have allowed herself to get in such a vulnerable position. She — a trained warrior. “Please tell me what you want.”

“The Bull, Elizabeth. We want the American Bull.”

Beth started crying then because the flames of hope were once again dying. They’d asked for something she couldn’t give them. Not because she refused to do so, but because she didn’t have the first idea what they were talking about.

“The Bull, Elizabeth,” he said. “Where is it?”

“Please,” she begged. “Please let us go. I don’t even know what that is. You’ve got the wrong person. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please! Please let my children go. Please...”

She wept as the gag was forced back into her mouth. A heavy fist punched her naked stomach, but no matter how much it hurt, she couldn’t double over, so she just hung there, taking the agony of further blows. Finally, when she felt as though something had ruptured, the punches stopped. More footsteps. Then the crack of light was replaced by total darkness. For a brief moment there was no sound other than her own muffled cries, then came the overwhelming noise of death metal and the screams of children.

She was back in hell.